Synth Britannia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeVRYPjcVXg

Neu! was actually invited by Bowie to Berlin before he ever left the US, and they were to meet up at Hansa Studios to experiment and lay down tracks for new songs that would become Low, not Heroes. Bowie was in a legal battle with his management over money and in fact, that they hated that he moved to Berlin. The management thought Bowie was throwing his fame away. Management then called Neu! and told them that Bowie didn’t want them at the studio anymore, and at the same time, called Bowie and said that Neu! had called and that they didn’t want to work with him. It would be more than two decades before either would realize the deception.

One small quibble is that I also felt like they played the ‘Germany in a bubble’ card too much. Several of the different band members have said they were highly aware of what was going on in Britain and American. Edgar Froese even credited Pink Floyd’s ‘Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun’ off 1968′s Saucerful of Secrets as the inspiration and blueprint for Tangerine Dream in early interviews.

life_inc, I gotta find that documentary. Is it online somewhere?

Nadmai, I love that story! My first exposure to this stuff was around the same age… 18 or so, I think? A music professor introduced me to the wonderful world of 60s experimental electronic music. (The same fellow who later told me I should try picking up the theremin.)

Listening to Popol Vuh for the first time sort of WAS like being on acid, for me. At that point, I’d only heard Eno, Tangerine Dream, Aphex Twin. I had no idea what I’d been missing. It was around the same point I discovered Herzog from a different college professor– a discovery that just completely recalibrated what was left of my already blown mind.

I miss discoveries like that, but I keep rooting around, trying to find ‘em. :)

“Just because they’re from the same country they should all sound alike?”

Oof, yeah, right? Definitely not! As db said, I think this doc did a great job of clarifying how unique and disparate the creators all were. I dislike the term Krautrock as well, as do many of the folks that got saddled with it. We do love compulsive pigeonholing as a species, don’t we? Alas, it’s the label that stuck.